In a huge turn of events, a Chinese drywall manufacturer has assuaged the fears of those who believed no lawsuit might ever emerge by agreeing to be served with the class action lawsuits brought forth by homeowners.
The Bradenton Herald reports
A Chinese drywall manufacturer has agreed to be served with a class-action lawsuit to be filed on behalf of homeowners, attorneys in the case said Monday.
Positive news for those looking for a federal response and action behind the Chinese drywall matter emerged this weekend with a Consumers Product Safety Commission report with a very notable inclusion. As reported by Sarasota’s Herald Tribune, buried within a long, 500-page report on Chinese drywall is a possible health diagnosis for the problems homeowners with the toxic import have been experiencing.
The Herald Tribune notes
The report issued by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and other agencies posits that victims might be experiencing “neurogenic inflammation” brought on by the “trigeminal nerve,” which branches out behind the face and throat with exposed endings in the nose.
A Happy (and safe) Halloween for all of our readers and friends from the Berniard Law Firm
In what may be a smoking gun of the evidentiary sort, federal investigators have found a chemical difference in the composure of Chinese drywall when compared to those products made within the country. While the discovery has yet to be the clear-cut indictment of the manufacturers of the imported wallboard, it is significant because it shows a clear difference between that drywall causing problems and domestic drywall that remains to be safe and not a cause for concern.
The New York Times reports
Federal investigators reported Thursday that imported Chinese drywall that homeowners have linked to health problems and odors had higher levels of some chemicals than its domestic counterparts.
The Virginia-Pilot profiles a few families harmed by Chinese drywall and the struggle they face in this dire time period. Within this piece is an interesting statement by a local elected official appealing to banks to avoid foreclosure on uninhabitable properties that have Chinese drywall installed within them.
The federal Consumer Product Safety Commission is investigating air-quality issues related to the drywall and plans to release some of its findings today and additional reports in the coming weeks. Several local homeowners also have sued the companies that manufactured and imported the drywall.
In the meantime, dozens of families across Hampton Roads face a dilemma similar to the Dunaways’: Continue to live in a home that could be making them sick, or move out and stack a rent payment on top of the mortgage bill.
A quick news piece emerging out of Houston demonstrates that though it has been a quiet hurricane season, the damage caused by previous years in which the Gulf Coast was not so lucky have still not been overcome. In Houston, individuals still living in FEMA trailers in the wake of Hurricane Ike have been notified that they will need to vacate and move on to more permanent housing.
Per Houston’s Daily News
Before Hurricane Ike, Sidney Lampman rented the first floor of her sister’s two-story house on West Hunter Drive in Old Bayou Vista. The hurricane flooded the house and, even though Lampman rented the property, rather than owned it, the Federal Emergency Management Agency gave her a mobile home while she looked for a new place to live.
The Associated Press recently ran a piece outlining the delays that will be faced in the $5 million assistance program established in Louisiana to assist in the removal of Chinese drywall in homes. While the project was set to help homeowners repair the wrongs created by the toxic wallboard, it appears that a myriad of bureaucracy and red tape may slow the track to recovery.
The program would be limited to homeowners with the drywall who received aid through the Road Home program after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The help would only flow once federal officials devise a national standard for drywall testing and remediation, and state officials acknowledged it’s not clear how long it might take to develop such standards.
Federal officials also would have to agree to spend the $5 million in federal hurricane recovery aid on the Chinese drywall program.
Consumer Product Safety Commission chairman Inez Tenenbaum’s visit to China is completed but the direct indictment of the foreign nation’s faulty drywall was not achieved, despite progress in the way of opening dialogue and encouraging cooperation. While Tenenbaum’s visit shows promise in that a visit by an American official puts pressure on China to cooperate with pending litigation claims, that the chairman failed to place blame on the manufacturers and demand results and response is going to disappoint some.
The Wall Street Journal reports
The new chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission wrapped up her first visit to China with a call for domestic suppliers to “do what is fair and just” in responding to allegations from U.S. homeowners over damage blamed on defective Chinese-made drywall.
A quick news piece emerging from the Associated Press today regarding a couple who had previously had their policy renewal refused because their home had Chinese drywall installed within it:
Citizens Property of Florida has reversed their decision and chosen to insure the couple after all.
The AP reports
A great editorial published yesterday by the Fort Myers News-Press describes the technical and legal battle that the idea of a drywall recall faces. While recalls of products have a slant towards Chinese-made items (reportedly “60 percent of 475 products recalled per year are Chinese”), the problem with drywall, it seems, is that it is not a distributed item like a toy but, instead, a supply for a future product. While that may seem muddled or confusing, that is the exact point of the piece. Such confusion dominates the very nature of recalls and accountability for said recalls and Chinese drywall is anything but simple.
Mary Wozniak writes
If the toy is made in China and a U.S. company like Mattel is the distributor, the brand-name company will be cooperative, because it wants to maintain its reputation and stay in business, said Marshall Meyer, a professor at Wharton School and a global expert on Chinese business.
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